Russia's Jewish community delegation carries out 'March of Life' at former concentration camp Oswiecim in Poland

Moscow, May 8, Interfax - The 'March of Life' action was held at a memorial in the Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim) concentration camp in Poland ahead of Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War.

"During the action a delegation of young people from the Jewish community in Russia, which numbers nearly 1,000 people from 45 cities in the country, visited the former Nazi concentration camp in memory about the tragedy of the Jewish people in the years of the Second World War and as a sign of gratitude for a feat of the Red Army, which has liberated Europe and dozens of thousands of inmates in the concentration camps and has saved hundreds of thousands of Jews in Hungary and other European countries," the European Jewish Congress press service told Interfax.

The Chief Rabbinate of Russia has organized the 'March of Life' action, which was held with the assistance of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), Rabbi Berel Lazar and Federation of Russian Jewish Communities President Alexander Boroda.

"Staying here today, we are even more feeling our duty not only to honor the memory of six million innocent victims, but also not to forget that this is the Red Army, which has liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau and has made the largest contribution in the liberation of the death camps and the stopping of mass extermination of people in dozens of European countries," the press service quoted EJC President Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor as saying in his speech to the audience.

"Our duty is not to forget the feat of those, who, not sparing their lives, saved our people," he said.

Even in the current epoch of broad access to information about historical facts, at the same time, young people should learn moral and ethical values.

"The knowledge about the events of the past should be correctly taken. Then the historical memory will be passed from one generation to another that will help prevent new catastrophes," Kantor said.

The delegation of the EJC and Jewish organizations in Russia has lit candles in memory of the prisoners and soldiers-liberators during the action.